(Some friendly advice for frazzled new mothers)
By: Salma Sanwari
Allah Almighty Says what means: "And We have enjoined upon man, to his parents, good treatment. His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship…"[46:15]
From that first positive pregnancy test to the special moment you finally have your baby home, life changes. It’s an upside down whirlwind. Body, mind, and emotions all are transformed, altered utterly. They don’t even seem your own any longer. And they’re not, exclusively at least.
But two things hold constant: Countless fall the droplets of rain, and in far less quantity than the blessings that fall upon motherhood.
Everywhere you took and all you do, with the right intention, can bring down divine favor on you from the One who has honored women with what no man can know: motherhood. By His decree, some of us endure its pains and thereby become eligible to reap of its untold, eternal gains. For deep in the primal female psychology, its arduous trials fuse the most mysterious matrix in all human experience. Physical and psychological pain transubstantiate into the purest passionate matter on earth, swathing newborns in the most formidable emotional mantle available to humankind: mother-love. And, indeed, it will take all that love, you new Muslim moms, to fulfill this most trying of charges for which you have been individually chosen. So, welcome to motherhood. Its rewards are multiple, fulfilling, spiritually immanent and, in the life to come, superlatively eminent. But it all begins with the most dramatic sensation: physical, and then emotional, pain.
Body aches and psychological strain
The mayhem that pregnancy and mothering wreak on a woman’s body is the perfect female physical storm. Weight gain, stretch marks, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, disfiguration of the corporeal ramifications of motherhood are incredible.
But look closer at those silvery, spider marks now webbed across your abdomen. Every one of their fleshy fissures etches a special path. But to what end do these furrows lead? Well, we know where they began. Each unique scar and swell of them originated in the hurt and sacrifice you made selflessly for your child, to accommodate its need for ever-increasing sustenance and comfort.
“So, indeed, with hardship comes ease. Indeed, with hardship comes ease.” Such is the successive promise of Allah, twice made in the Quran in a quarter of the eight short verses of the so appropriately named Chapter of Ash-Sharh, that of the “The Opening of the Heart” [94: 5-6].
It encompasses all trying situations for the believer, directed in its first instance to the Prophet . Yet its glad tidings give mothers, with all the difficulties they endure, a hope that seems to me with few post-prophetic parallels. Motherhood is no easy role. Its toll on the womanly form aside, its emotional and spiritual damages ring up far higher fees. Yet our losses are not merely consoled by Allah. They are immeasurably compensated. The greater our suffering and sacrifice, the more dramatic is our divine remuneration in the gardened lands of the Afterlife. We garner far finer physical, spiritual, and emotional delights in Paradise than ever we could dare imagine in the brutal brevity of this truncated world.
When I reflect on my own experiences in child bearing, birthing, and rearing and recall what was running through my mind (and all around me) most of the time, I know for certain that were it not for the help and ease Allah provides mothers, I could never have suffered motherhood, not even for a day.
Yet the mindset of the Muslim woman is different. You know for certain that all commands and outcomes rest with your Ever-Merciful Lord and All-Wise Creator. Spontaneously, there rises up within you a sparklingly sincere sense of your utter need for Him, and Him Alone. Deep in the pangs of childbirth—driven even to the metaphorical trunk of dear Maryam’s real tree, may Allah exalt her mention, at once you are praying, supplicating, calling out from a place so near, yearning for a kind of vanishing finish. Your paroxysm peak with crisis, and He is right there. Suddenly you are delivered.
Many new mothers tell me, however, that recovery is these days their greater challenge. So I’ve compiled a few suggestions to help you deal with the arduous self-renovation that now lies before you. Trust me. You can slowly work yourself back to a physical and affective condition better than you experienced before birth. Read on, and may you find it useful.
Preparing your body
1. Get into shape as soon as possible: Many veteran moms advise that this is the single best way to regain a sense of personal, functional control after the long ordeal of pregnancy and delivery. Work surely toward gradual weight loss, and, in direct proportion to your efforts, you will reclaim in reward cascades of both physical and mental energy. The systematic struggle to hone and tone your body is itself better than half the psychological battle.
2. Get out and get moving:
The faster you can emerge from the house with your baby, the sooner you can enjoy new motherhood and forget the troubles of pregnancy and birthing. Also, outings with your baby will get you into the sunshine and that can only help you feel better about yourself, as opposed to being cooped up alone with a newborn.
3. Get some sleep! Easier said than done, I’m here to tell you. But it’s one of those things that catches up with you sooner or later. Motherhood, especially the first time around, steals sleep from a woman like the stealthiest thief. So, as a first-time mom, you need to sneak in as many hours (or even minutes) of power sleep as possible, whenever (and wherever) you can fit them in. Otherwise, you will find yourself ever more exhausted, grouchy, and out of shape, even than after delivery.
4. Eat well: Keeping nourished and hydrated is essential fur new moms, even though you have little or no time to keep up with your newborn’s feeding schedule. Nevertheless, maintaining healthy eating habits and drinking enough water are crucial to keep up your own health.
5. Look good to feel good: Just because you’re tired and haven’t managed to sleep or even shower in days doesn’t mean you can’t at least brush your hair and change out of your pajamas. If you can’t do what you want, do what you can to make yourself feel good about you.
Emotive lows, spiritual highs
Just as a woman’s body endures consequences as a result of motherhood, she also is subjected to emotional repercussions after pregnancy. One of the many things a new mom has to manage is the emotional roller coaster of having a little one underfoot. A new mom experiences many psychological and emotional frustrations. Within the space of minutes, she can go from elation and love to loneliness, depression, and anger; to disappointment, and back to satisfaction.
Coincidentally it’s this same woman who is granted an elevated spiritual status in Islam, for she stands upon a veritable mountain of endurance for the sake of her child—sacrificing, suffering, and aching for him or her, asking for nothing in return but the pleasure of Allah and the best for her son or daughter.
What to except
1. All of the above earlier physical consequences have emotional undertows, as well. If one is not getting enough sleep, doesn’t feel good about oneself, or is not eating well, one is bound to suffer from psychological distress to boot. Feeling tired or “fat” is definitely going to have some negative ramifications on the psyche.
2. We expect having a baby to offer us immediate gratification from the baby itself. An infant, however, doesn’t normally provide this fulfillment directly for most new moms. Rather, newborns require on-demand attention, and lots of it, making new motherhood one of those moments in life that fall short of our expectations while requiring more of us than we could ever have envisioned. This is a real double ambush for many first-time mothers.
3. A lot of women join the parade of motherhood to great fanfare, only to find they soon feel all alone. After the baby, visits from family and friends, and with husband back off to work, mom is suddenly home alone with a new person and begins to realize that this is the way it will be for a long time. That’s when you have to quickly figure out how to find your own social circle and build your network with other moms into a good support system. This is not merely emotionally important. It is a very practical move to answer myriad mundane questions, concerns, worries, and anything else you may feel the need to cry, scream, or laugh about regarding baby.
A woman's life changes in countless ways with motherhood. After a day of frustration, built on fatigue, bolstered by loneliness, and augmented by the burden of continuous child care, with the added opportunity to run frantically to and fro managing the homestead alone, you might find yourself asking, Where is it all going and what is it for?
That’s when I want you to look at those stretch marks, and follow any one of them to their most coveted ends. My dear Muslim mother! All stretch marks lead to Paradise.